Creative thinking for Historians!
In 2019 I was asked to participate in the Connecticut League of Historical Organizations (CLHO) annual conference, both as a vendor and as a panel guest-speaker. In preparation for the event, I decided to create two fun worksheets to help my fellow historians use creative thinking to further their critical thinking skills. These are what I made for and distributed that day!
As a child, I spent a lot of time in the history and heritage world. My dad restored 19th and 18th century New England antique furniture for a living and worked out of the Colt Building in Hartford, and my mom did PR for many different non-profits in the Hartford area, including the Connecticut Historical Society, the Antiquarian and Landmarks Group, and the Hartford Antiques Show to name a few. Much of my time out of school was spent wandering the back rooms of dusty archives, trying not to touch the beautiful highboys and secretaries, and making up stories to match the fascinating objects (and people!) that seemed to be at every turn, no matter where I was.
As an adult, I have continued to seek out these spaces of stewardship through my work as a student, an artist, a facilitator, and a consultant. My time spent at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts only deepened this connection, adding to it a more clear-cut awareness of the issues with the ways in which history and heritage work have traditionally been approached in this country. I learned ways to not only explain but try to work through these issues, and that work has continued in the decade or so since my graduation. When I returned to Connecticut in 2018, I immediately found myself working with Old New-Gate and through them connecting to many sites which I had known of but never visited in my youth.
I have always treasured the time I get to spend in small museums, historical societies, and libraries across this country. On both of our cross country moves, Brett and I have made it a priority to visit these spaces of history and heritage. Talking to the brilliant and devoted people who curate, operate, and steward these spaces and their collections is a true favorite pastime, and over the years - from childhood to adulthood - I have heard many of the same sentiments expressed over and over again.
Along with an immense pride and devotion to their work, can often come a bit of myopia - a seemingly necessary symptom of such focused and specific study and stewarding. And yet, despite this some near-sighted perspective, these historians have always maintained such an expansive ability to think, and perceive, and process.
As I spent much of 2018 and 2019 traveling around Connecticut to various spaces of heritage and culture, I was also researching and writing for my forthcoming workbook/workshop Engage & Embody. All of the sudden, as the CLHO conference approached, I found a perfect playing ground for the work I had been doing with Engage & Embody. Thinking critically about the issues with practicing history that I had seen again and again over the years - particularly in the non-profit sector - I realized that the work I was doing with creative thinking and embodiment were perfectly aligned to help work through these issues I had been aware of for so very long.
I believe that for many professionals in the heritage and culture industry the systematic issues faced everyday - those which are ingrained at the very base of their education in many cases - create a practice of history that is not only uneven, but that actively works against holism of thought. The Western practice of learning history is traditionally solipsistic and classist, and is also governed by an academic myopia that is detrimental to each and ever intellectual which moves through it - particularly those who have taken up the charge of keeping track of it all; the historians.
Even if a historian manages to move through the ivory tower with objectivity, an open-heart, and a commitment to equity of documentation, when they move from student to professional they find their energy and focus immediately hogged by the "red tape" work which allows their work as a historian to be financed and thus done at all. How many times have I had an hour long conversation about the fascinating history of the space I'm visiting, only to pick up the ONE brochure on the way out and find in it a story so boring and standard that you'd be hard pressed to get even the biggest history-geek to bother visiting? How many times have I asked "why don't you write this down?" and been told "well, I started to but then the funding fell through..." or "I would but it's not really the interpretation the board has decided on...".
As a child, I spent a lot of time in the history and heritage world. My dad restored 19th and 18th century New England antique furniture for a living and worked out of the Colt Building in Hartford, and my mom did PR for many different non-profits in the Hartford area, including the Connecticut Historical Society, the Antiquarian and Landmarks Group, and the Hartford Antiques Show to name a few. Much of my time out of school was spent wandering the back rooms of dusty archives, trying not to touch the beautiful highboys and secretaries, and making up stories to match the fascinating objects (and people!) that seemed to be at every turn, no matter where I was.
As an adult, I have continued to seek out these spaces of stewardship through my work as a student, an artist, a facilitator, and a consultant. My time spent at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts only deepened this connection, adding to it a more clear-cut awareness of the issues with the ways in which history and heritage work have traditionally been approached in this country. I learned ways to not only explain but try to work through these issues, and that work has continued in the decade or so since my graduation. When I returned to Connecticut in 2018, I immediately found myself working with Old New-Gate and through them connecting to many sites which I had known of but never visited in my youth.
I have always treasured the time I get to spend in small museums, historical societies, and libraries across this country. On both of our cross country moves, Brett and I have made it a priority to visit these spaces of history and heritage. Talking to the brilliant and devoted people who curate, operate, and steward these spaces and their collections is a true favorite pastime, and over the years - from childhood to adulthood - I have heard many of the same sentiments expressed over and over again.
Along with an immense pride and devotion to their work, can often come a bit of myopia - a seemingly necessary symptom of such focused and specific study and stewarding. And yet, despite this some near-sighted perspective, these historians have always maintained such an expansive ability to think, and perceive, and process.
As I spent much of 2018 and 2019 traveling around Connecticut to various spaces of heritage and culture, I was also researching and writing for my forthcoming workbook/workshop Engage & Embody. All of the sudden, as the CLHO conference approached, I found a perfect playing ground for the work I had been doing with Engage & Embody. Thinking critically about the issues with practicing history that I had seen again and again over the years - particularly in the non-profit sector - I realized that the work I was doing with creative thinking and embodiment were perfectly aligned to help work through these issues I had been aware of for so very long.
I believe that for many professionals in the heritage and culture industry the systematic issues faced everyday - those which are ingrained at the very base of their education in many cases - create a practice of history that is not only uneven, but that actively works against holism of thought. The Western practice of learning history is traditionally solipsistic and classist, and is also governed by an academic myopia that is detrimental to each and ever intellectual which moves through it - particularly those who have taken up the charge of keeping track of it all; the historians.
Even if a historian manages to move through the ivory tower with objectivity, an open-heart, and a commitment to equity of documentation, when they move from student to professional they find their energy and focus immediately hogged by the "red tape" work which allows their work as a historian to be financed and thus done at all. How many times have I had an hour long conversation about the fascinating history of the space I'm visiting, only to pick up the ONE brochure on the way out and find in it a story so boring and standard that you'd be hard pressed to get even the biggest history-geek to bother visiting? How many times have I asked "why don't you write this down?" and been told "well, I started to but then the funding fell through..." or "I would but it's not really the interpretation the board has decided on...".
|
| ||||